Game Review - by Jeremiah Pratt
Are you ready for some Nintendo flashbacks? That's what I get when I play Heart of Darkness. Interplay's side scrolling adventure, featuring an inventive daydreaming boy. Who loses his dog.

Storyline:
Whoops I almost described the whole story there, but there's more. Hidden in the heart of Darkness lies a terrifying world. A world ruled by the Master of Darkness whose cruel and absolute power leads an army of emaciated devils. The fiendish force scours the land in search of Andy, a young boy on a quest to rescue his dog Whiskey. That about sums up the whole story.

Features:
The Interface, is probably the best feature in the game. It is really cool, and I like how the computer talks to you and stuff. The options are really easy to figure out and you'll be on your way in no time. The game has an AutoSave feature every individual scene. I found this extremely annoying because I like to save anywhere. This seems to be a small theme in Interplay games, because Die by the Sword does the basically the same thing.

Graphics:
The Graphics in the game are so so. Not so hot, not so bad the best feature is the silicon graphic like movies. The character animations are probably the only strong point in this downward spiral. I was not overly impressed. I do enjoy side scrollers, but this one didn't show me anything right out kick butt. One good thing you did feel like you're interacting in on big movie.

Sound FX:
The Sound FX are ok, there are some little nifty details like Andy's heavy breathing. The Musical Track picks up the slack where the rest of the game lagged behind. A down right winner in this category. The music set the mood, to either terrify ya or sooth ya. It actually sounds like an orchestra, well hehe because the London Orchestra did it.

Gameplay:
The Gameplay, can be intuitive yet dull. I got bored at the constant droves of shadows. Plus the game is really hard. Even on easy mode, I'm not complaining about the puzzles, but more or less the swarming enemies. Luckily you have unlimited lives, but it gets frustrating at times. Especially when you have to do a scene over and over. And when you die you have to start at the very beginning of that screen. Forcing you to do it all over again. That ticked me off, and that's where I started to hack the code to add save anywhere j/k.

Overall:
Overall this game is okay. I does make you think while bashing you with hoards and hoards of the shadow dudes. One wrong turn or missed shot and you're lunch. The difficulty of the game makes it hard to enjoy. On the box it says ages 8 and up. But it should say for ages 21 and up. If and 8 year old can excel at this game without crying to mommy. He or she needs to seek a career in professional game playing.